So, this came about in a recent discussion. When you have a Two Options field in Dynamics, what’s the point of marking it a business required field?

Let’s start by looking at how you create this field. When you add a new Two Options field, the screen to define it looks like the screenshot below:

Observe that, when you define the field properties, the values are by default Yes and No (you can actually edit and change these), but all the way to the bottom right, you are defining the default value. That means that, no matter what you do, the field will have a default value as defined here. And that works just fine, in particular, when a user creates a record. The selected default value is populated.Read the rest of this entry »

I would argue that in today’s world, it is almost impossible for one person to know in detail all aspects of a platform. Take Dynamics 365 for example. With the merger of multiple platforms under one generic marketing name, now we have specialists in Customer Engagement, F&O, Talent, etc. Take it one step lower, inside Customer Engagement, and with Field Service and PSA, you need to catch-up on new concepts, business models, etc. And then there’s always been the xRM part, which is all about the client’s business need outside of the scope of typical standard modules. But that’s not all.

As the event line-up is taking shape, it’s looking like a great set of presenters, covering a Functional Track, a Technical Track as well as an Ecosystem track with a focus on related technologies like CDS, PowerApps, Power BI.

Spots are filling up quickly, and the seats are limited. Register to reserve your seat HERE.

All robust platform can have a daunting data structure. With some, and in certain situations, you might not directly care about the intricacies. But if you are looking to create reports and visualization, identifying the complexities around data structure becomes quite important.

When working in Power BI, and connecting to Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement, the first step is to identify the entities and relationships that will help you to create relevant dashboards.

You could just ask a Dynamics developer to walk you through it, but that’s not always an option.

Back with older versions of Dynamics CRM, the SDK used to include these complex and large ERD diagrams. They were hard to read, and too stuffed of information. I remember spending time cleaning them up and removing non-relevant entities and relationship so I can present a small portion in documentation.

But fast forward to today. As a Power BI resource that is just starting to look at leveraging data from Dynamics 365, you can start first by looking at the entities. You can find a listing of the entities in the SDK (available for 8.2 at this time).Read the rest of this entry »

With the GDPR deadline coming on May 25th, 2018 it is important to understand that not only organization from EU need to pay attention, but rather all organizations having any kind of business with EU.